The Forum

Born in 1924, the prolific writer and thinker James Baldwin is a landmark figure in twentieth century American culture. The author of popular novels such as Go Tell It on the Mountain and bold essay collections such as The Fire Next Time, his works explored themes including race, sexuality, identity, democracy and love. An African-American man born in Harlem who spent much of his life in France, he became an important literary voice during his country’s civil rights movement. A critic and analyst of his country’s racial divide, he saw division as destructive and urged his fellow citizens to achieve a better future together.Rajan Datar and guests reflect on some of the key moments in James Baldwin’s life and work. With expert scholars Rich Blint, Ernest L. Gibson III and Magdalena Zaborowska.Photo: James Baldwin in 1964 (Jean-Regis Rouston/Roger Viollet/Getty Images)

Join Paul Cartledge, Emeritus Professor of Greek culture, as he explores the profound roots of democracy tied to the Acropolis. Andronike Makres shares insights on ancient inscriptions and laws that shaped Athenian society, while Demetrios Papageorgiou discusses the engineering secrets behind the Parthenon’s enduring beauty. They delve into the Acropolis's historical transformations, from its role in democracy and theatre to its modern significance. Discover the tensions of pride and decay woven into this iconic monument!

A champagne-loving industrialist who enjoyed hunting, a literary critic and an upstanding Victorian gentleman: this does not sound like a description of your typical advocate of proletarian revolution or the co-author of the Communist Manifesto. Yet Friedrich Engels was all those things and more. Deliberately keeping in the shadows of his comrade-in-arms Karl Marx, Engels led an eventful life, fighting in the 1848 German revolution, attending secret meetings with Chartists and keeping two homes in Manchester: a respectable one that fitted his image of a bachelor businessman, the other a boarding house where he lived with his working-class lover Mary Burns and her sister, and future wife, Lizzie. Rajan Datar charts the life and work of Friedrich Engels with the help of leading scholars of Marxism: Jonathan Sperber from the University of Missouri, Terrell Carver from Bristol University, Belinda Webb-Blofeld from Kingston University and Christian Krell from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.Photo: Statues of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in Berlin. (Getty Images)

Empress Nur Jahan was the most powerful woman in 17th century India, wielding an unparalleled control over the Mughal Empire. Born as Mehr-un-Nissa, she came from a wealthy Iranian family who came to India and made their way up the imperial court. After the death of her first husband, a Persian soldier, she became the twentieth and final wife of Mughal Emperor Jahangir and her rise to the top really began. Often sitting beside her husband in court, she controlled trade routes, designed gardens and mausoleums, was said to be a skilled hunter and was the only Mughal Empress to have coins minted in her own name.Joining Rajan Datar to explore the life of Empress Nur Jahan is Ruby Lal, professor of South Asian Studies at Emory University and author of 'Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan'; Mehreen Chida-Razvi, Research Associate in the Department of Art History at SOAS, University of London; and Shivangini Tandon, Assistant Professor at the Department of Women's Studies, Aligarh Muslim University, India.Photo: a detail from the painting Jahangir and Prince Khurram with Nur Jahan, c1624-1625 (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Anna McMullan, a Professor of Theatre and co-Director of the Beckett International Foundation, joins Benjy Francis, South African director known for his groundbreaking all-black cast of Waiting for Godot during apartheid, and Garry Hynes, artistic director of Druid Theatre. They explore how Beckett reshaped theatre, the philosophical underpinnings of the play, and its interpretations across global contexts. Francis shares insights on the political impact of his directorial debut, while Hynes discusses contemporary relevance and casting debates.

An accomplished young horsewoman who loved fencing and male attire, the 17th-century Swedish Queen Christina was anything but a conventional princess. And she kept springing surprises on her court and country: after just a decade on the throne she abdicated, converted to Catholicism and moved to Rome. Once there, she put herself forward as a candidate for the post of queen of Naples, opened a public theatre and scandalised the Holy See by a liaison with a cardinal. Bridget Kendall follows Christina's adventures with biographer Veronica Buckley, and historians Stefano Fogelberg Rota and Therese Sjovoll.Photo: Christina of Sweden by Jacob Heinrich Elbfas, 1640s

The Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh is one of the most influential painters in western art. His series of still life sunflowers are known around the world today, but during his lifetime in the 1800s he lived in poverty, selling incredibly little of his work, some say just one painting, and suffered several serious breakdowns. One of his most famous paintings - The Starry Night - is said to be the view from his room in a French psychiatric hospital where he’d admitted himself shortly after severing his own left ear. This programme looks at the man behind these iconic paintings, explores how and why he became a painter and picks apart the various theories around his death from a gunshot wound at the age of just 37.Joining Bridget Kendall to discuss van Gogh’s life and work are Louis van Tilborgh, Senior Researcher at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and Professor of Art History at the University of Amsterdam, van Gogh biographer and co-author of van Gogh: The Life, Steven Naifeh, and British art historian Lucrezia Walker.Photo: Self-Portrait by Vincent van Gogh (Getty Images)

Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was known for his piercing wit, irreverent satire and social commentary. Leaving school early following the death of his father, he lived many lives in one: spending time as a journalist, steamboat pilot and world traveller, suffering significant personal and financial losses. These are just some of the experiences that would feed into his novels, articles, short stories, essays and the thousands of letters that are still being unearthed today. Best known for his book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which tells the story of a rebellious young boy called Huck floating down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave called Jim, Twain developed a style that led to him being credited as "the father of American literature". The work, like so much of Twain's other writing, tackles serious social issues and continues to be shrouded in controversy to this day. Bridget Kendall discusses his life and works with Twain scholars Shelley Fisher Fiskin, Thomas Smith, Jocelyn Chadwick and Mark Dawidziak.(Photo: Mark Twain (Donaldson Collection. Credit: Getty Images)

The Hungarian obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweis, born 200 years ago this month, saved the lives of hundreds, possibly thousands, of new mothers with his forward-looking ideas about hospital hygiene. He insisted that junior doctors working for him wash their hands in chlorinated lime solution before examining expectant mothers. This simple procedure reduced mortality by something like 90 per cent at the Vienna maternity ward that he was in charge of. Many more deaths could have been prevented had other physicians followed his advice without delay. So why did many in the medical profession resist not just Semmelweis's findings but also similar ideas of his fellow hygiene pioneers, such as Joseph Lister? Quentin Cooper discusses the beginnings of surgical cleanliness with Dr. Sonia Horn from Vienna University, Dr. Andrew Cunningham from Cambridge University and Prof. Michael Worboys from the University of Manchester.Photo: presurgery sanitization. (PeopleImages/Getty Images)

Try and imagine a world without numbers. Telling people how many siblings you have, counting your wages or organising to meet a friend at a certain time would all be much more difficult. If you’re reading this on a digital screen, even these words are produced through a series of zero and one symbols. We take them so much for granted yet some cultures don’t count and some languages don’t have the words or symbols for numbers. This programme looks at when and why humans first started start to count, where the symbols many of us use today originate from and when concepts like zero and infinity came about. Joining Bridget Kendall to explore the history of numbers and counting are anthropological linguist Caleb Everett from the University of Miami, writer and historian of mathematics Tomoko Kitagawa, and Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Warwick University in the UK, Ian Stewart.Photo: An abacus on a table.(CaoChunhai//Getty Images)